To Praise 'Contempt'

While rummaging through a drawer in the 'junk room' the other day (you know, that room in your house that slowly accumulates piles upon piles of stuff until you just finally give up on ever cleaning it and declare it to be 'the junk room'; every home in America has one, I honestly believe) I came across one of the very first DVD's I ever bought, one that I had nearly forgotten about. It was the Criterion Collection's 2-disc release of Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 classic Contempt. I hadn't seen it in years, and I was so excited when it just sort of reappeared that I made some time for myself to sit down and watch it all over again. Now, I'm always hesitant to recommend movies to other people. Books are one thing - you will immediately weed out people who don't read by discussing a book. Movies are different. Everybody watches them, although most people, being idiots, tend to watch movies geared towards their idiocy. Contempt is a movie that a lot of people will not like, and a passionate few may even despise. It has little in the way of an active plot line. It moves at a pace that will torture the ADD generation (not that they don't deserve to be tortured in the most grisly manner possible anyway). It has the kind of 'arty' aesthetic that was a calling card of European movies of that era (and hell, maybe of all eras). And yet, watching it all over again I realized why I once called it my favorite movie ever. It is the most visual film imaginable; widescreen Technicolor portraits of paradise in Capri, Brigitte Bardot looking more majestic than she ever did before or after, cinematography that makes emphatically clear how far the standards of filmmaking have plummeted over the years. It's one of the very few films that ravish your eye without letup. I don't know if I'd bring this movie up in a casual conversation or not. In a way it's almost too special. But if you ever have the chance to see it (in its original aspect ratio, of course) sit still for a while and give it a chance. It is not a movie like other movies; Godard couldn't do that if he tried, and he probably did try at least a little with this one. What it is however is one of cinema's great testaments to a time when movies stood shoulder to shoulder with novels, art movements and noted intellectuals as harbingers of a living and at least somewhat healthy culture. It didn't last long, and it doesn't exist at all now, but for a while there was glory to behold indeed. Contempt was among the most glorious.

Recommended: David Cronenberg - Author or Film-Maker? by Mark Browning

One of the best Christmas presents I received this past holiday season was Mark Browning's fascinating examination of the career and influences of David Cronenberg, perhaps the most overlooked and under-appreciated filmmaker of the past several decades. With the exception of 1986's The Fly, few of his movies have been box office smashes, and yet taken as a whole they constitute a virtually uninterrupted 30-year streak of intelligence and excellence that, in my humble opinion, cannot be matched by any of Cronenberg's peers. While his hardcore fanbase has grumbled about his last two 'mainstream' films, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, it was his earliest works that instantly divided audiences into blissful devotees and repulsed detractors. As a kid, I vividly remember how it actually meant something profound to say you saw one of his films. Of course, we were just suburban teenage boys impressed with exploding heads, armpit parasites and stomach vaginas, not really aware of the deeper significance of his plots, but then again there were all kinds of horror movies we were eager to see back then that you couldn't pay me to watch nowadays. I own all of Cronenberg's movies on DVD; I could watch them all back to back with no problem. Clearly, something was there far beyond the now-dated special effects.
And that is what Browning's book delves into, taking several key films from Cronenberg's career and exploring not only their themes but also their (perhaps uncredited) inspirations. I won't attempt an official review after just one reading, but Browning delivers the most penetrating look at Cronenberg's creativity in action (albeit the creativity underneath the surface - clearly a risky and subjective task) that I've ever encountered. Of course, Browning has himself mentioned that his is only the second English-language book devoted to such an attempt; there is hopefully much more to come, but Browning does set a very impressive bar to reach.
For someone like me, unfamiliar with J.G. Ballard until Crash was filmed, and unaware of the 1977 novel Twins by Bari Woods and Jack Geasland even years after I saw Dead Ringers, discovering the literary parallels to Cronenberg's work was interesting just in its own right, but it's the ambiguous relationship Cronenberg seems to have to the source material that makes for an intriguing read. Browning provides ample evidence of filmmaker-as-frustrated-novelist, and perhaps frustrated just enough on occasion to resort to a subtle plagiarism that seems quite odd in light of Cronenberg's uber-intellectual demeanor. And while I find Browning's closing line a bit too harsh, I admit it isn't something that can be easily refuted despite my knee-jerk desire to do so immediately upon reading it. (And no, I won't quote it to you here. Treat yourself to your own copy.) But Browning is definitely not one of the repulsed detractors of Cronenberg's films; quite the contrary. And one of the things that makes this such an impressive and entertaining book is the respect he maintains while probing deeper into the flesh of Cronenberg's movies than has ever been done before.
If all goes according to plan (and the plan goes according to press release), Cronenberg's first novel will be published by Penguin Canada in 2010. While Browning may have to write a new afterward, everything else will remain relevant for a long time to come. And while I'd be a bit reluctant to recommend this to someone unfamiliar with the movies themselves, this is obviously a must-have for anybody who might chuckle at the realization that the guy that made Shivers wound up becoming one of the most brilliant minds in modern cinema.

An Ominous Sign

I'll tell you this only because no one reading can recognize my face in public (yeah, as if anybody reads this blog to begin with). I have just heard Mandy Moore's version of 'Umbrella'...and I really like it. I mean I really like it. So apparently, 2008 will be the year my ability to discern good music from schlock begins to speed down the road to oblivion. I'll be on the other side of the cultural mountain after that, folks, should this turn out to be true. Brain soup is right around the corner. Oh, I'll try and head it off at the pass, so for the next 48 hours I'll be listening to Exile on Main Street, Blood on the Tracks, Late For The Sky, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on auto-repeat. See you next year. Stay safe. Wage war on corporate puke.

Post-Yule Fatigue

I do hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas season, but I must say it seemed to fly by awfully fast this year. I didn't even get a chance to sit down and enjoy my annual ritual (for the past two years at least) of watching the 1974 classic Black Christmas on DVD. And as always, there's that somewhat unpleasant letdown that begins on December 26th, when the natural high of opening gifts has left, when the food is gone from the plate and now lives on forever hanging over the sides of your britches, and you still have to make it through the single most depressing holiday ever invented by man - New Years. Ah yes, a holiday devoted to the passing away of one of the precious few years of life you'll have here on earth, celebrated at the darkest, coldest time on the calendar. Although I guess 'New Years' is a better title than 'Suicide Week'. I've always suspected that the actual date of New Years was originally August 14th before being changed by lobbyists for the liquor industry. But the biggest cause of depression this time of year is the knowledge that you're now going to have to put away all 17,000 decorations that you've used to make your house look like a North Pole-based theme park. And it was only in the past four days that I even realized I still had rubber shrunken heads hanging on the wall from Halloween. And for those of you who have a cat it's even worse. You'll be finding little dried-up patches of vomit with one lone Christmas tree needle caked in the center for months to come. Cats give too, y'know.
Me personally, I'm just countin' the days until April Fools.

Note To Self...

Having just finished re-reading American Rhapsody by Joe Eszterhas for the first time in seven years, it brought back memories of all the bad feelings I used to have for Bill Clinton and how I once thought that no future President could ever possibly be worse. Wisdom - in this case at least - was learning that not only can I be wrong, and will be wrong, but will oftentimes be wrong immediately.
So remember - as long as there is a Bush alive on planet earth, your optimism belongs on a very short leash.

Creatures of the Night

Over the summer a neighborhood kitty with the most amazing blue eyes I've ever seen curled up under my bush outside and stayed there for days, clearly unhealthy. By the third day I tried to gather him up and take him to an animal hospital (since the neighbor he belongs to doesn't have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot), but the little kitty became very unhappy when I got too close to him. So I put out a small bowl of cat food and some water, hoping that might help a little. He disappeared for a week after that, then reappeared looking refreshed and quite healthy, I'm glad to say. He was also looking for more food. Devoted animal lover that I am - and cats are my favorite of all - I gladly put out a bowl of Kit & Kaboodle and some fresh water for the little guy. He wouldn't let me pet him, and he's not the friendliest feline I've ever met, but which each new bowl he grew more comfortable with me, eventually even rubbing against my leg while waiting. And then one evening around sundown I walked outside and found another kitty, this one much bigger, more nicely groomed and clearly well-fed, helping himself to some leftover Kaboodles. When he realized I wasn't a threat he became very affectionate, but clearly he didn't understand me when I told him that this food was for another cat. So I let the newcomer eat what he wanted, then made sure the bowl was filled for little Blue Eyes, whose overnight appearance was now like clockwork. Weeks passed, and I'd occasionally see the bigger cat around, but since he didn't come around every night I didn't mind. Then one day, a yellow Tabby from across the street was there eating from the bowl too. Not long after that a tiny little black kitten came by several times a day, ate a few pieces and scampered off. What can I say? I'm a sucker for these creatures. If they were hungry and wanted to eat, then so be it. And then one night I heard what I knew was some unusually loud chewing going on outside. I mean, really bizarre chewing. Chomping, crunchy chewing that would drown out popcorn kernels popping on the stove. Next morning, there was Kaboodle everywhere! It was a gigantic mess, and very unlike the eating habits of any of the cats I'd seen so far. But I didn't think that much of it until one night after dark when I heard it again. Grabbing a flashlight, I quietly slipped out the front door, curious to see which kitty was making obnoxious eating sounds like Aunt Phyllis at a buffet. And it wasn't a kitty at all. It was an opossum, making no effort towards table manners of any kind. Now, when you expect to see a cat and get an opossum instead, it's kinda scary. There's just something about those long, pointy snoots and skinny bare tail that will jolt a suburb dweller like me. I'm sure country folks wouldn't have given him a second glance, unless they just wanted an entrée before dinner. But it startled me. Once he became a regular nightly guest as well, I got used to him, but that first introduction was a little spooky, so I started going outside with a bit more caution after dark. Once last week, I peered out the kitchen window and saw the opossum and the Tabby actually taking turns eating from the bowl, although that didn't last long. The Tabby took off after the opossum made a move for a piece of food on the ground that was close to the Tabby's paw. But it was a sweet picture while it lasted. And then last night at around twelve-thirty, I was turning off the lights and getting ready for bed, cursing myself for sitting and watching 'Hostel' all the way through on cable. Bleeeccch. But there it was again - loud crunching. I couldn't help myself, so I flipped the blinds open and looked out. There was the opossum (whom I've since named Percy...no reason) and two brand new friends. Raccoon friends. Big raccoon friends. And it was one of the raccoons who was doing the crunching this time. The other one, for some reason, didn't eat any food. Poor Percy got too close to the one who was eating and got smacked right in his big ol' long snout for his trouble. Raccoons aren't as willing to share, I guess. So, simply for trying to help out a sick little blue-eyed cat, I've managed to draw the attention of three other felines, one opossum and two raccoons. I'm on the lookout for a moose next. And I'm spending a friggin' fortune on Kaboodle.

Brautigans

I've always read a lot of books, with at least several competing for my attention at any given time, and that makes it easy to pick up on certain things like rhythms, patterns of speech and so forth. One thing that I always notice, usually by its absence, is atmosphere, the mood created by the author when his or her words are strung together. When you read a lot of books you come to realize how rare it is when a writer can not only tell a story well but also impart an aura into their work that becomes palpable, as unique as a perfumed page that moves the emotions and the spirit like an internal music. Someone who wrote with that ability, and many times created a tone of profound beauty that fascinated me even when I understood little of what I was reading, was Richard Brautigan. Author of the celebrated Trout Fishing in America, which became something of a cultural landmark, he also wrote other books that reeked of some friendly yet ghostly presence that escaped from each page upon reading.
The very first time I ventured into one of his all-too-brief works was with Willard and his Bowling Trophies, one of his least popular books among literary critics, and one of my favorite books ever. I won't spend any time trying to describe his writings; only the books themselves can do that. But his chapters, seldom more than a page or two in length, could turn a few lines of scant detail into precious art in much the same way as would a freely sketched drawing by Rembrandt. With barely enough material to fill the page, both captured souls and essences in a manner that made it seem as if that was their primary purpose for living. Or maybe in Brautigan's case, the only thing that kept him alive.
Brautigan's life, in fact, was over just months after I began reading my mothers copy of Willard..., and I still have the small obituary she cut from the newspaper after his body was discovered inside his house in Bolinas, California. A bit ragged from age, it is used as a permanent bookmark in her small, hardback copy of his final book, So The Wind Won't Blow It All Away. A few years ago, his daughter, Ianthe Brautigan, wrote You Can't Catch Death, an amazing book that's on par with every great thing her father wrote, and in all honesty (given the circumstances that helped to create it) much more emotionally mature. It is a dual biography both of Richard's life and her life with - and after - him, an attempt to understand his upbringing, his career, his suicide. It also happens to be the kind of simple, funny, tragic and very human story that Richard Brautigan himself seemed to love writing.
Perhaps because two of the first Brautigan books I ever read were in fact Willard and his Bowling Trophies and So The Wind Won't Blow It All Away, I imagined that death was a common theme in his writings, unaware that there is far more joyful innocence and whimsy in his words than anything else. Reading much of his work only after his suicide somewhat tainted the happiness that was there on the page. But it is still there, and it still acknowledges that there were times indeed when he truly felt it, and I can assume truly loved living as well. And hopefully those times were not as brief as his chapters suggested.
I wouldn't know where to tell anybody to begin if they wanted to start reading his books, and I might tell them to start with You Can't Catch Death before they read any of them. Or maybe just pick one at random and wait until you have a quiet hour to spare. It's for certain, though, that they're friends worth having.
A decade before his death, Richard Brautigan described the melancholy he felt once when passing by some homes affected when the Yellowstone River in Montana overflowed. It was, he said, 'the silence of flooded houses'.
And so long as you know that there's plenty of beauty and laughter still inside them as well, I think those are perfect words to describe what he has left us.